Chapter 131.1: “Want to try it?”
Zhou Shan was badly shaken and shut himself in his room, refusing to come out. Outside, the others fended off several more attacks by the monkey packs.
Knowing how much he cared, they didn’t leave the monkeys’ corpses lying around. They made sure everything was eaten clean—nothing left, not even a drop.
“Let’s wait until he’s calmed down before we leave,” Wang Meixia said. “What if he does something rash…”
Wu Heng had no objections; his body needed rest anyway.
Lin Mengzhi poured out a pile of energy cores from his bag. “I’ll recharge a bit. If I ever make it to S+, that’d be f*cking awesome.”
Liu Dongfan stared curiously at the pile of cores glowing with a red sheen. “How do you even know if you’ve leveled up?”
“It’s a feeling. You wouldn’t get it—you’re not an ability user,” Lin Mengzhi replied.
Night fell quickly. Outside, a torrential rain began to pour down. In the mountains, the cacophony of sounds was like the roars of dragons and tigers. The surging rainwater rushed down the mountain path beyond the courtyard, gathering into the canyon below.
Watching the rain, everyone knew they definitely wouldn’t be leaving today. But Wang Meixia and Liu Dongfan were more anxious than the others. Even after seeing the horrific state of Luo Lei’s mother, they still harbored a muted hope that their own children might still be alive.
The mountain air grew heavier with moisture, a chill seeping in. In the living room, Shen Ping’an and Liu Dongfan studied Zhou Shan’s fire-table—the one that could burn firewood for warmth—until they had it figured out. They lit an open flame; at first they only meant to warm their hands, but before long, the entire room grew cozy.
Wu Heng took out more than a dozen sweet potatoes. Ruan Silian set them beside the fire. “They’ll be ready to eat in a bit.”
Bathed in firelight, the sweet potatoes glowed a warm red. Wu Heng turned and walked into the study—in truth, he slipped into the space.
The space had undergone a complete transformation. Verdant mountains and waters stretched on, merging with pastureland. Sheep wandered leisurely, while wild pheasants buried their heads in the shrubbery, foraging. The poppy had produced an endless sea of flowers for the bees to feed on, butterflies flitting among them. The trees and flowers Wu Heng had personally selected had taken root and flourished, living at ease.
But there was still far too much empty space left in the space.
Wu Heng pondered for a moment, then rummaged through the miscellaneous items Doctor Chen had sorted out and found the vegetable and fruit seeds he’d bought before the apocalypse, along with sweet potatoes and potatoes.
“The soil and water of Shenjiandi should be well suited for growing crops,” he said.
Wu Heng’s workload was steadily increasing; he pulled out a notebook and meticulously recorded the flora and fauna—both static and living—within the space, as well as the tasks Doctor Chen would still need to complete for long-term sustainability.
Doctor Chen appeared soundlessly behind him.
“If you can go collect a thousand kinds of medicinal herbs for me, then after feeding sheep, raising chickens, keeping bees, planting trees, and planning gardens, I might consider being your farmer as well.”
“After mutation, medicinal herbs may be far more valuable than before—leaving them to waste in the mountains is such a pity,” Chen Meng said.
“You might as well dig them all up; I could save more people that way.”
“That’s illegal.” Wu Heng flatly rejected the unreasonable demand.
Chen Meng let out a cold laugh, turned around, and spread his arms. “Then in your view, these must all be legal.”
“…”
“I don’t know medicinal herbs. Give me a list and I’ll do my best.” Wu Heng finally gave in, also recognizing that medicine was as valuable as food.
When he left the space, he carried more than a dozen herb lists, along with a raincoat and a set of pajamas. He left the raincoat and lists in the study, planning to go out once the rain eased.
“Is there water? I need a shower.”
His hair wasn’t tangled—probably because it wasn’t ordinary hair but plant matter—but he could feel how filthy it was, soaked and dried again and again, even carrying a faint smell of rotting leaves that only he could detect.
Wu Heng didn’t lack toiletries; he’d stocked up on shampoo, body wash, toothpaste, towels, and the like long ago, enough that even sharing with Lin Mengzhi and the others, he wouldn’t have to worry about running out for years.
Standing in the cramped bathroom, the foam from the lychee-scented shampoo streamed down his hair. He’d never washed hair this long before; his head hung forward until his neck ached, and he could feel the energy inside him gradually turning irritable. The poppy cautiously emerged from the spine at his lower back and vigorously helped him rub and lather from behind.
Once it was clean, Wu Heng scooped water himself to rinse the foam from his hair. The poppy, mimicking his form, stretched out five glossy green fingers and slid them down along Wu Heng’s spine.
Smack.
Wu Heng frowned and slapped it away.
The poppy froze midair, confused. Weren’t they the same vine?
Outside the bathroom, Wang Meixia was telling everyone about stories from when she and Liu Dongfan used to go hiking. The others listened with rapt attention. Just as she got to the part about climbing a snow mountain and getting caught in an avalanche, forced to take shelter in a rock cave, Wu Heng walked out of the bathroom.
His cheeks were pale with a hint of pink. His half-dried hair fell loose, and the limbs beneath his striped pajamas were slender and long, with not the slightest hint of aggression. It was as if the hot water had washed away the dull, hardened shell that usually encased the boy’s body.
“Walking around with wet hair like that—you might catch a cold,” said Ruan Silian, clearly speaking from experience.
Wu Heng sat down by the table and switched to a dry towel. Lin Mengzhi eagerly said, “I’ll help you,” scooped the towel out of his hands, and started drying his hair for him.
“Auntie Wang, keep going—I love listening,” Lin Mengzhi urged as he wiped.
Wu Heng called Shukui over to him.
In his hand was a harness-style leash.
“Damn, you even have one of those?” Lin Mengzhi nearly dropped his jaw when he saw it.
“Probably grabbed it when I was helping that bird carry things. It couldn’t use it—Shukui can.”
Hanging from one side of the harness was a metal tag. Wu Heng pressed his palm against it and used his ability to engrave his own name and Shukui’s onto it.
“I’m going to sleep,” he said. The moment he moved, Shukui and X immediately followed.
Once Wu Heng left, Wang Meixia and the others visibly relaxed.
Subconsciously, they felt he was different from the other children. Even though they were all the same age, he gave them a sense of distance and detachment—or rather, he felt less like a human being.
—
Wu Heng sat at the desk and took out the map Xie Chongyi had given him. He quietly scanned every existing base marked on it, but in the end his gaze stopped on one place Xie Chongyi had deliberately highlighted: a location called Siwangzhidi—somewhere that hadn’t existed before the apocalypse.
Its area equaled the combined size of seven southern bases. Mountains, rivers, lakes, and plains were all there, with considerable depth. It bordered the sea to the southeast and neighbored the Hezhou Base to the northwest. And yet, such a place had never been established as a base.
He circled Siwangzhidi.
Late at night, Wu Heng no longer heard voices outside. He opened the door and glanced out, discovering that everyone had laid bedding around the firewood pile and had already fallen sound asleep.
He closed the door. As he turned back, he caught sight of a black shadow flashing past outside the window.
In Zhou Shan’s study, the door and window faced each other. Just inside the door on the left was the desk, and the single bed was placed by the window. It was obvious Zhou Shan didn’t usually rest in the study—the bed couldn’t even hold half of his bulk. Wu Heng walked quietly to the bedside, knelt soundlessly onto it, and let vines creep along the windowsill, probing through a gap.
Boom—
A bolt of white lightning split down from the distant mountain peak.
The vine tip that had stretched out was suddenly seized by a hand that appeared from the darkness.
“Wu Heng.” The newcomer’s voice was slightly breathless.
Wu Heng’s expression flickered with brief shock. He climbed fully onto the bed and pushed the window open. A boy drenched in rain easily flipped in through the window into the study.
Wu Heng stepped back two paces. “Class Monitor?” he asked uncertainly.
In the strange and ever-changing apocalypse, it was hard not to doubt the authenticity of the other person’s appearance here. It might be a hallucination caused by some kind of plant pollen—or perhaps a tiger hag, the kind best at disguise.
A scorching kiss landed on Wu Heng’s face and lips along with the icy rain. Rainwater and saliva pressed together into his teeth. He tilted his head back, his lips ground until they hurt. Only when his fingers touched the warmth of the other’s cheek did he realize that the appearance before him was not an illusion.
Xie Chongyi cupped Wu Heng’s cheeks and kissed him, driving him back step by step from outside to inside. With a bang, Wu Heng’s back hit the bookshelf. Xie Chongyi reacted in time, bracing him with a palm. A book fell from above; Xie Chongyi caught it with his other hand and, still kissing Wu Heng, casually slid it back into an empty gap on the shelf.
Wu Heng was pulled close again. The hem of his pajama top was cinched up in a big fold, exposing a strip of snow-white waist. Xie Chongyi’s fingers brushed over it, and a small patch of fine downy hairs rose, trembling.
A few strands of hair trailing along Wu Heng’s waist tangled around Xie Chongyi’s fingers. Xie Chongyi paused, drew back a little, and studied Wu Heng’s face for a long while before finally looking at the cascade of dark hair. “What happened to your hair?”
“Probably my wood-type ability, and spring’s here,” Wu Heng said hoarsely.
Watching Wu Heng’s lashes flutter, Xie Chongyi slid his fingers along the ends of his hair, tilted his head, and kissed the tip of his nose, smiling as he spoke.
“Brother is so pretty.”
“How can brother be this pretty, hmm?” As he spoke, he kneaded Wu Heng’s abdomen with his other hand. “Did you eat a lot of sweets yesterday? No wonder you taste sweet when I kiss you.”
Wu Heng was forced into the corner, his pajamas soaked in places.
He hadn’t known before that the class monitor could be this talkative—and when he was, there was no logic to it at all, no filter, saying whatever came to mind.
Nor did he need Wu Heng to answer.
Because every time Wu Heng opened his mouth to speak, Xie Chongyi would kiss him—his lips, the corner of his mouth, the bridge of his nose—so he couldn’t form a continuous sound, only broken, intermittent soft gasps.
It wasn’t until nearly everything above the waistband had been explored by Xie Chongyi’s hands that he finally stopped and said hoarsely, “I missed you.”
Wu Heng’s face was covered in tooth marks. He gave a quiet “mm,” his chin lifted, and Xie Chongyi pressed on, unwilling to let it go: “And you?”
Being forced to express it made an indescribable shame well up in Wu Heng. In this regard, he seemed to be the complete opposite of Xie Chongyi—he didn’t like to talk, and he didn’t know how.
“How did you get here?”
Xie Chongyi didn’t press the question. He smiled and said, “By helicopter. The rain was so heavy—I almost didn’t get to see you.”
Wu Heng didn’t know whether Xie Chongyi was telling the truth, but the thunder and lightning outside were very real.
**TN
Siwangzhidi (死亡之地) – Land of Death, Deathground